By the beginning of this century a great change had taken place and James Orr prefaced his defense of the traditional position by sketching the
widespread questioning and rejection of «bodily resurrection» by Christian scholars.10 In 1907 Kirsopp Lake published the
first study of the resurrection, in English, which rested upon a thorough
application of historical criticism to the New Testament records and he concluded that «The empty tomb is for us doctrinally indefensible and is historically insufficiently accredited.